Siren #147: Hang with us at the MCG — upcoming Melbourne events!

A Women in Sport Collective

Jan 07, 2025

Happy new year!

We hope you’ve had a safe and festive time over the break and are enjoying all the women’s sport that is on offer.

The holidays can be a wonderful time to relax and reflect. They can also be incredibly tough. We know many in the Australian women’s sport community are going through a hard time as we said goodbye to a legend of Australian rules football, the formidable Sal Rees, just before Christmas.

Sal was a powerhouse and known to many in women’s footy as well as in the many other sports she played and volunteered in including cricket, soccer and eight-ball.

Sal was the first player to reach 200 games in the VFLW (formally VWFL), and was awarded life membership. Some of you might also remember when in 1995 she nominated for the men's AFL national draft. This. Was. Huge. Sal did this to draw attention to the limited opportunities for women in football and start a bigger conversation. This was an incredibly brave step to take and we will be forever grateful to Sal for being an incredible leader and champion for women in sport.

If you want to learn more about Sal we can’t recommend this episode of “Cutting Oranges” with Darcy Vescio enough. It is a beautiful chat between Darcy and Sal.

We send love to all who knew her. Rest in peace Sal.

Join us to celebrate women in cricket and women’s sport history

We’re still taking a little break ourselves at Siren Sport HQ, but we have some exciting events coming up at the end of January in Melbourne that we wanted to make sure you knew about! So if you’re in Melbourne or planning to travel there for the historic Ashes Test, we’d love to see you at the MCG!

In the lead up to the historic Women’s Ashes Test at the MCG, we are hosting two great events on 28 January 2025 with our great friends at the MCC Library.

Date: Tuesday 28 January 2025
Time: 10am to 12pm
Location: MCC Library at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
Cost: FREE!

All are welcome to join us for this panel discussion on the morning of Tuesday 28 January. This panel will feature historians and journalists discussing the role of historical storytelling in sports writing, how to tell historical stories and will highlight the resources the MCC Library offers to find women’s sports stories in the archives.

Our panel will feature leaders in the field:

Raf Nicholson, cricket historian, academic and sports journalist
Marion Stell, one of Australia's leading sports historians and author of “The Bodyline Fix”
Karen Hill, former Australian cricketer and member of Cricket NSW Women's Heritage Group
Kirby Fenwick, Siren co-founder, historian, writer and audio producer

We will also hear from MCC Librarians David Studham and Trevor Ruddell

The panel will be moderated by Siren co-founder and Deakin University sports media academic, Kasey Symons.

Book here

Date: Tuesday 28 January 2025
Time: 2pm to 5pm
Location: MCC Library at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
Cost: FREE!

This will be a hands-on workshop perfect for women and non-binary sports writers, emerging and established, who are keen to develop some more historical research skills to aid in their storytelling. We will have historical storytelling experts in the room such as Raf Nicholson, Marion Stell, Rob Hess, MCC Librarians David Studham and Trevor Ruddell and Siren co-founders Kasey Symons and Kirby Fenwick, leading a workshop on how to find stories, conduct research and bring the story together.

We will prioritise registrations for women and non-binary folk for this workshop.

Book here

If we have remaining places we will open registrations to all but please feel free to email us at contact@sirensport.com.au to add your name to the wait list and we will let you know if we have any spots left by 22 January.

ABC Sport x Siren Sport networking night: Melbourne — save the date!

Thanks to the success of our virtual networking nights, we are going to be doing some in person!

Our first in-person networking night will be on the evening of Thursday 13 February 2025 in Melbourne.

Pop the date in your diary now and stay turned for more details very soon.

And if you’re a fan of our virtual networking events, never fear! We will continue to run online events.

ICYMI: Who cares? Reflections on a post-Women’s World Cup sport media landscape

By Samatha Lewis

To wrap up 2024, Samantha Lewis wrote this reflection on where we are in the sports media landscape after a groundbreaking Women's World Cup and what the future can hold.

It’s still quite the fitting piece to read as we begin 2025 if you didn’t get a chance to check it out last year.

Using the summer to upskill? Check out the Siren Sport x ABC Sport Academy resources

The ABC Sport Academy includes behind the scenes videos of ABC Sport journalists on the job, as well as informative vodcasts providing valuable industry insights on topics like interviewing, researching and writing a story, and sports reporting and presenting.

Last year, we worked with the ABC to add some more content to these resources to further support women and non-binary folk working in, or aiming to work in sports media.

The most common questions and requests we get at Siren from both emerging, and established writers focus on four key areas:

Pitching a story
What makes a good story?
How to go about researching a story
The writing process

So we made some vodcasts and created some tips and tricks to help you navigate them all!

These vodcasts include discussions and reflections from Siren co-founders Kasey Symons, Kirby Fenwick and Kate O’Halloran on these topics based on their different experiences in sports media and storytelling. We hope they help you on your sports media journeys too!

And be sure to check out all the other great resources through the ABC Sport Academy like social media, interviewing, producing a feature and more!